The Insurtech Leadership Podcast

What Insurers Can Do to Prevent Being on the Wrong End of the Creative-Destructive Process (w/Jay DeVivo, CoFunder)

Jay DeVivo, Founder at CoFunder talks to us today passionately about innovation process at insurance carriers and the process of identifying new market needs and a path to market acceptance.  

Jay calls innovation "creative destruction". He says many insurers have not yet gone "all in" on the necessary process and commit true innovation to take place, including bringing in new people with new skillsets. Instead, we see insurers taking a good game but doing things that are comfortable. They can dismiss ideas because people don't come from their own niche (eg. P&C vs. Healthcare), or hide behind behind data protection. Jay calls on C-Suite members in insurers to have courage, and give their people the resources and support to not find themselves on the destruction-end of the creative-destructive cycle. 

He also calls on founders to have a clear vision and not be "all over the place" when working with carriers.

Follow Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.

Making Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Effective by Knowing What You Stand For (w/Cynthia Hardy, Pivot Partners)

Meet Cynthia Hardy, CEO and Founder at Pivot Global Partners, and recent author of 'Crossing Meridians'. 

Cynthia created a concept of 'Design Agility' in parallel to design thinking, it's a construct to re-orient around the customer and guide work. It gives you a method of discovering what customers need and will pay for. She describes how leaders often over-rely on their known paths, and instead need to learn through discomfort and cross divides to surround themselves with people who do not think and act just like them.

Cynthia says acting on the pulse of the organization is not enough to lift it up and change it. A leader needs to know what they stand for, develop vision and know what organizational strengths to leverage to move it, gaining traction win-by-win.

She also describes measuring learnings in new ways when dealing with new areas for the organization such as Innovation or DEI, and holding leaders accountable for the end-to-end processes from sourcing, hiring, onboarding, mentoring, and champions and advocates in promotion, rather than just focusing on the numbers.

Follow Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.

What it's Like to Build a Lab at a 200-year old Insurer? (w/Christopher Lowell, ex-Head Innovation Lab at The Hartford)

Christopher Lowell created The Hartford's Small Business Innovation Lab and was tasked with building out new channels to test whether the organization could launch a new service before bringing it back to the core. The Hartford are leaders in small commercial, true experts at running their core day-to-day business. They went in with a strategy to innovate from a position of strength, knowing they were a leader and wanting to take that leading position further.

Chris' role was partly to partner with the outside world. He describes insurers as builders with a strong brand that needs to be nurtured and kept safe. Whereas Insurtechs tend to be smaller, scrappier and lacking "Fort Knox" security standards. So the lab ended up building most of its own new things versus partnering with Insurtechs.

The team insisted going beyond powerpoint and concepts into building real products to sell. People who worked there needed to understand the demands of a 200-year old company that does not build "playthings." Lots of people are going to care about outcomes, particularly in compliance. Chris selected people who were willing to perform in a team versus being a deep subject matter expert, who ask questions that build up an opportunity versus tear it down.

Chris describes a wave of people flooding towards the insurance industry because of the massive opportunity to change it for the better. So there is a huge need for insurance-specific subject matter expertise, particularly in underwriting.

Follow Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.

 

A +3-Year Review of the Predictions in 'The End of Insurance as We Know It' (w/Rob Galbraith, Author)

Rob Galbraith, author of 'The End of Insurance as We Know It, started at USAA when insurance was still primarily advertised word-of-mouth in the military. His experience with tech startups led to writing the book and found an avid international audience. His nickname actually came from an early podcast appearance! 

In today's episode, Rob and Josh check-in on what predictions from the book are coming to fruition, from devices and wearables to AI software. These technologies are driving insights and behavior, and regulations and laws are still catching up. Distributed ledger technologies are still not mainstream in insurance and will likely not be in the next five years, whereas AI has really picked up for insurers. Rob also brings into focus the importance of Distribution, agents, brokers and how their access to digital tools has a high impact and is helping drive industry innovation.

Follow Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.

AI is not a Tech project, it's a Whole-Company Initiative (w/McGregor Faulkner, McKinsey)

McGregor Faulker, Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company has a wide view across the use of AI in insurance. 

'Mac' says that for every dollar you're spending on the technology, you're spending more on behavioral change management. Driving lift on business metrics has to be the focus, not just setting technology targets. 

To get value out of digital, you need to have the right strategy but also attract analytics and AI talent. Insurance may not be the first choice for top engineers, but there is a real opportunity and real sense of surprise by the impact one can have on the insurance industry. These are first-mover innovations rather than 30th iteration consumer plays. 

Insurers need grass-roots innovations that come from the front-line, designers in a lab to help shape a product, and top-level support. There are opportunities for everyone at insurers, not just data scientists who can be part of the change in the industry. 

Follow Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.

How AI Learns to Read Insurance Policies (w/Ron Glozman, Founder Chisel AI)

Ron Glozman, Founder Chisel AI studied computer science and business, taught his computer to read and created an algorithm to detect what course content to read in order to pass exams. His app went on to be ranked All Time Top 50 for students by Google. Based on this success, one of the largest insurance brokers reached out about policy checks, errors & omissions. So Ron taught his computer how to read insurance policies and automate the process.

From start-to-finish this whole episode is a fascinating deep dive into how Insurtech actually works! Ron explains in detail how natural language processing works, from entities, types of nouns and numbers and the relationships that override others eg. policy limits, deductibles, premium, names of the carriers and insured. Chisel AI trains its algorithms on 180,000 unique data examples every month. This is how software gets 'smarter' over time.

Follow Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.

Insurtech's Two Biggest Competitors (w/Jim Dwane, CRO Bolt Solutions Inc.)

Proud to welcome Jim Dwane Chief Revenue Officer at Bolt Solutions Inc., the world’s largest P&C insurance exchange. Jim is a 30-year veteran of Travelers and AIG who wanted to capitalize and explore the new world of technology applied to his deep insurance experience.

Bolt is living proof that not all insurtech is new or run by technologist-millennials. Bolt has been working on transforming insurance for twenty years, continually iterating its core insurance distribution software. Bolt is international and has additional offerings in Asia and Europe than in the U.S. for example device protection and general insurance. 

Jim explains how for a long time insurance was binary distribution, either via agents or direct carriers. What has evolved is the customer demand for sharing balance sheet risk, and becoming a destination to purchase insurance in a more comprehensive way. Bolt helps insurers increase the lifetime value of a customer relationship and enables expansion of the products sold to customers.

Jim also explains how a person can land in a Chief Revenue Officer role at an insurtech, how he made the decision to move from insurance to insurtech, and what it takes to succeed in this kind of role. 

Follow Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.

People with Experience and Relationships Make a Scalable Company (w/Mike Kalen, CEO Covr Technologies)

Mike Kalen, CEO Covr Technologies has brought long-awaited disruption to the process of selling life insurance through advisors.

Mike says what used to take years now takes only months: Firms have a mandate to digitize their business, so partnerships have become easier. The Chief Digital / Transformation Officer is in a much better position to act as a champion and get new technologies in place than a traditional Head of a business line. 

Part of Covr's secret of success has been giving up single-digit equity to build an active, world-class advisory board. These "sharks" will pick up the phone to open a door or to get a deal closed, and bring new ideas into the product. A great advisor will see whether your technology has high potential so it's a two-way street.

Follow Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.

Take Your Technology and Create Impact (w/Phil Budden, MIT Senior Lecturer)

Dr. Phil Budden says insurance plays a fundamental role in our society and economy. People forget that insurance itself was a pretty funky innovation and underpinned the industrial revolution. Insurance will have a key role to play as industry switches over to work-from-home and protecting industrial secrets. Companies need insurance to innovate, for example autonomous vehicles. Not every insurtech wants to disrupt an incumbent, some want to help improve back-office processing or with a new user experience that speaks to younger demographics. Innovation applied to making your business more effective makes sense. 

Check out the continuing education program at MIT, where Phil is partnered with Innsure to bring cutting-edge insurtech trends to light.

Follow Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest growing #insurtech and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.

Until you can be a Unicorn, be a Cockroach! (w/Charles Merritt, CEO Buddy)

"So a a cinematographer walks into a startup..."

It sounds like the start of a joke but Storytelling is a huge part of building an early-stage company. Charles Merritt Founder at Buddy Insurance worked at Kayak early on, and learned how he could help insurers understand how to make their brands more meaningful to their customers through great storytelling. 

Then there's the cockroach thing... As Charles relates, most startups fail because they run out of money, fail to generate revenues.  You have to find ways to stay alive in the face of heavy adversity. The red thread of startups is having changed their business models, pivoted towards revenue and having strong cultures of being ready to go when new opportunities present themselves. 

Company culture is the reason people get excited to come to work. Founders need to be mindful of how you act, what you celebrate and find important. Charles talks about how at the early days at Kayak getting out on the water was just as important as the office job to the founders, and how he brought that same life lessons about life balance and outdoor lifestyles over to Buddy.